Who’s the Daddy? column

But unless you want to live at home with your mum and dad when you’re in your mid-40s then it’s a necessary evil.

Daughter #1 shocked us all last week by telling us she’d applied for a part-time job.

She knocked on a few doors, was asked to submit a CV, she wrote her CV and handed it in.

I told her if she needed help she only had to ask but I got a polite “thanks, but no thanks” and she did it all off her own bat.

At 15, that’s pretty impressive. A little bit of initiative goes a long way.

She’s done voluntary work for her Duke of Edinburgh Award which involved getting out of bed at 8.30 on a Saturday morning but there’s nothing like having your own cash that you’ve worked for in your hot little hands.

It’s yours, you’ve earned it and you can spend it on what you like.

To be honest, she’d like to spend it on an Apple MacBook with a 15.4-inch screen but that would take 34.2 Saturdays at £5 an hour.

And if she’s anything like yours truly (and sadly for her she is) she’ll down tools two hours and 48 minutes into her 35th shift, demand payment for what she’s owed and march off to the nearest Apple shop to buy her Holy Grail in folding cash.

I may be as biased as Martin Keown when he’s cheering on whoever Manchester United are playing while he’s supposed to be co-commentating for the BBC, but if she isn’t running or owning something large and hugely profitable by the time she’s 25 I’ll be very, very surprised.

But part-time jobs when you’re a teenager are ace.

You learn more on your first day than in 12 years at school.

And unlike school you get paid.

And if you don’t like it you can go somewhere else.

The happiest days of my working life were flipping burgers and placating lines of swaying drunks in a very famous fast food restaurant in the middle of Lancaster for £25 a night in the late 1980s.

I had more money than I could spend. Which was the first and last time I’ve ever been able to say that.